Six Discourses on the Postmetropolis by Edward W. Soja Helen Ho Nov. 2013

Six Discourses on the Postmetropolis

by Edward W. Soja

Helen Ho

Nov. 2013

Urban Region of Los Angeles

http://www.americanhomeshow.net/losangeles/images/losangeles.pic.9.jpg

Urban Region of Los Angeles

Orange CountyPostmodern fiscal crisis of Orange County in 1

994

Postmetropolis

Understanding the postmetropolis requires a variety of creative recombination of micro and macro perspectives, views from above and from below, a new critical synthesis that rejects the rigidities of either/ or choices for the both/ and also.

Six Discourses on the Postmetropolis

FLEXCITYCOSMOPOLISEXOPOLISMETROPOLARITIESCARCERAL ARCHIPELAGOSSIMCITIES

FLEXCITY

On the restructuring of the political economy of urbanization and the formation of the more flexibly specialized post- Fordist industrial metropolis.

FLEXCITYContinued intimate relation between industria

lisation and urbanisation process.De-industrialisation has been occurring along

side a potent re-industrialization process. built on: ♣high-technology electronics production ♣cheap labour-intensive forms of craft product

ion ♣the expansion of producer-oriented services a

nd technology

Silicon Valley

http://www.iappcontest.com/.a/6a01310f4ee8be970c0133f2601b0b970b-pi

COSMOPOLIS

On the globalization of urban capital, labour and culture and the formation of a new hierarchy of global cities.

COSMOPOLISThe vanity of the bonFIRES and it referred to

what an over-concentration on the command and control functions of the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, real estate) in the global cities literature and a closely related overemphasis on two tiny sites where these commanding bonFIRES appear to be burning most brightly.

Wall Street in ManhattanThe City in London

The Wall Street

http://binary-options-strategy.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Wall-Street-Exposed.jpg

EXOPOLIS

On the restructuring of urban form and the growth of edge cities, outer cities and postsuburbia: the metropolis turned inside-out and inside-in.

EXOPOLIS

The growth of Outer Cities and Edge Cities and other manifestation of the rather oxymoronic urbanization of suburbia

A dramatic reconstitution of the Inner City:

outmigration of domestic populations

immigration of 'Third World' workers and cultures

Beijing

http://www.kotoc114.com/data/cheditor4/1308/nlkPbRkXZOATmQHA8UB1GSHGq.jpg

METROPOLARITIES

On the restructured social mosaic and the emergence of new polarizations and inequalities.

Attracts largest number of urban sociologists.

METROPOLARITIESIncreasing social inequalities, widening inco

me gaps, new kinds of social polarization and stratification that fit uncomfortably within traditional dualisms based on class (capital-labour) or race (white-black) as well as conventional upper-middle-lower class models of urban society.

e.g. dinks, upper professionals, the new technocracy, the working poor, the new orphans...

Disparity Gap of the United States

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ70hiltOdw

Disparity Gap of the United States

http://mrhyper.blogspot.tw/2013/03/blog-post.html

CARCERAL ARCHIPELAGOS

On the rise of fortress cities, surveillant technologies and the substitution of police for polis.

CARCERAL ARCHIPELAGOSCity of Quartz, Mike DavisLos Angeles: fortified city e.g. ♣bulging prisons ♣sadistic street environments ♣gated and armed-guarded places ♣high-tech space police 'carceral' technologies of violence and social c

ontrol

Gated

http://pic1a.nipic.com/2008-12-15/20081215135658545_2.jpg

SIMCITIES

On the restructured urban imaginary and the increasing hyper reality of everyday life.

SIMCITIESOn the postmetropolis as Simcity, a place wher

e simulations of a presumably real world increasingly capture and activate our urban imaginary and infiltrate everyday urban life.

Hyper-realitye.g. passing through gates and paying for admi

ssionBoth micro-scale and macro-scale

Disney Land

http://www.google.com.tw/imgres?um=1&biw=1366&bih=620&hl=zh-TW&tbm=isch&tbnid=wEC_X_EKLqGhtM:&imgrefurl=http://dapsmagic.com/2012/01/15/auspicious-start-to-chinese-new-year-with-hong-kong-disneylands-year-of-the-dragon-celebration/&docid=W8sPygiL87auPM&imgurl=http://dapsmagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/HongKongDisneylandMickeyMouseMinnieMouse.jpg&w=2700&h=1793&ei=T5KXUp2PKY3AkQWewoC4Ag&zoom=1&ved=1t:3588,r:94,s:0,i:369&iact=rc&page=5&tbnh=183&tbnw=246&start=74&ndsp=23&tx=98&ty=51

Orange County

http://img.realtor.com/california/orange.gifhttp://www.carolmendelmaps.com/mapla/soc.gif

Orange County

One of the richest, best-educated, and most staunchly right wing and Republican counties in the US.

Post-Fordist industrial restructing, Exopolis,

hyper-reality1994, bankruptcy

Conclusion We are all living in an increasingly postmordern worl

d that is creating new contexts and new challenges that cannot be effectively responded to by clinging to older ways of thinking and acting politically.

Urgent for progressive thinkers and actors to resolve their internal divisions and act together to create an effective and emancipatory postmodern politics and a conceptual framework for an also explicitly postmodern critical urban studies that is appropriately and effectively attuned to the realities and hyper-realities of the contemporary moment.

The End

Thanks a lot!